Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Iridescence is well-known in the animal kingdom (and has been around since at least dinosaur times), but this-- the African herb Pollia condensata-- seems to be the first known example of an iridescent plant:

Monday, August 20, 2012

They can change color, looking initially like tiny jewels, or golden
ladybugs, but can alter the reflectivity of the cuticle so the outer
layers become clear, revealing a ladybug
type of red coloring with black spots. This color change is
accomplished by microscopic valves controlling the moisture levels under
the shell.

During the Cretaceous, 139-65 million years ago, shallow seas covered
much of the southern United States. These tropical waters were
productive–giving rise to tiny marine plankton with carbonate skeletons
which overtime accumulated into massive chalk formations. The chalk,
both alkaline and porous, lead to fertile and well-drained soils in a
band, mirroring that ancient coastline and stretching across the now
much drier South....
Over time this rich soil produced an amazingly productive agricultural
region, especially for cotton. In 1859 alone a harvest of over 4,000
cotton bales was not uncommon within the belt. And yet, just tens of
miles north or south this harvest was rare. Of course this level of
cotton production required extensive labor...
As Washington notes further in his autobiography, “The part of the
country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of
course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and
consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers."

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Believe it or not, this odd prickly creature, which lived during the Cambrian era, is a primitive echinoderm:

Echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, crinoids, etc.) are
well-known for their pentamerous (5-fold) radial symmetry. ...Many living
echinoderms pass through a bilateral larval stage, evidence for the
well-worn adage "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" (also known as the
Biogenic Law, which as a general hypothesis is now largely unaccepted).
However, no fossil evidence - that is, an actual bilateral echinoderm -
has ever been found (although a few asymmetric fossil echinoderms are
known). Until now. Samuel Zamora, of The Natural History Museum in
London, and colleagues have just described Ctenoimbricata spinosa, a new genus and species from the Murero Formation (earliest middle Cambrian Period) in northeastern Spain.

“Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals. Recent advances have linked many bizarre Burgess Shale animals as primitive members of many animal groups that are found today, but Siphusauctum defies this trend. We do not know where it fits in relation to other organisms,” said lead author O’Brien.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A "treasure trove" of fossils - including some collected by Charles Darwin - has been re-discovered in an old cabinet.
The fossils, lost for some 165 years, were found by chance in the vaults of the British Geological Survey HQ near Keyworth, UK.
...
The find was made by the palaeontologist Dr Howard Falcon-Lang.
Dr Falcon-Lang, who is based in the department of earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, spotted some drawers in a cabinet marked "unregistered fossil plants".
"Inside the drawer were hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets," Dr Falcon-Lang explained.
"This process allows them to be studied under the microscope. Almost the first slide I picked up was labelled 'C. Darwin Esq'."

Sunday, January 15, 2012

This image of an ice wall and the ocean floor at Explorer's Cover, New
Harbor, McMurdo Sound is adjacent to remote-controlled photographic
equipment. An underwater camera is connected by cable to onshore
facilities, which upload images to the Internet via radio signals.

Friday, January 13, 2012

John Hill, 1714?-1775.
A general natural history: or, New and
accurate descriptions of the animals, vegetables, and minerals, of the
different parts of the world. . 3 v. London: Printed for Thomas Osborne, 1748-1752. 72[?], plate 4.

Monday, January 9, 2012

The word "plankton" shares a Greek root with "planet" (πλαγκτός,
meaning drifting or wandering)-- an etymological link which seems
particularly appropriate for these drifting microbes, spherical or
stellate in form: